February Gardening

General Jobs in the Garden


If you have finished all the major tasks, such as digging over, creating leafmould heaps etc you will not have a lot to do in February but if like most of us you are scrambling to keep up, this is your last chance before spring.

Double check the greenhouse, ensure the glass is firmly secured and replace any cracked panes etc. If you've not managed to give it a thorough clean, now is the time before it is pressed into service.

Check last year's potato bed for any volunteers (left over small potatoes) and remove them to avoid passing on disease problems and blight.

You're going to be using your pots and seed trays next, so this is a good opportunity to wash out and sterilise them so you seedlings will get off to the best possible start. If you havent got any then dont worry. They are very cheap. An unheated propogator will certainly help and for an extra £2 is worth every penny

This years potato bed will benefit from a good application of compost or rotted manure that can be forked in or rotovated in to get them away.

You can cover soil with dark plastic sheeting, fleece or cloches to warm it up for a couple of weeks before you start to sow and plant.

Plotting for profit - slug hugging & Snow business in the garden

Plotters and profiteers


There is a class war going on in allotments. Allotment groups have hit out at private entrepreneurs attempting to make money from renting out plots to the 150,000-strong waiting list. The private New Allotment Company, for example, is renting out 100sq ft allotments for £150 each; treble the price but a third of the size of typical council plots.

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Matthew Appleby

Children in the garden: how to get kids interested?National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners national secretary Geoff Stokes and National Allotment Gardens Trust chairman Neil Dixon are united in their opposition to commercial profit-making allotment companies. Dixon compares them to drug dealers, making hooked gardeners pay over the odds for what they are addicted to.

But serial entrepreneur Rudi Schogger, managing director of the New Allotment Company, which aims to build 10,000 allotments by 2012, says local authority allotments are “not viable” as a business model, and that if private businesses such as his take over provision for the shortfall in allotments, councils may no longer consider themselves responsible for the service.

He says: “It is a possibility [that new private allotments] might make councils lazy. But I’m not to be held responsible for the public sector. It is up to the taxpayer to demand them or not.

“It’s nanny state stuff - I don’t understand how we arrived at the modern system. It’s a socialist system - without wanting to get into politics. That’s why we arrived at the shortages we have.”

Allotments used to be for pensioners and the poor. Now they are for the middle classes. Do you agree with the new private initiatives?

Slug huggers

I ran a pop-up garden shop in up-and-coming London suburb Brockley recently. We sold the dream ticket of secondhand books, local photo cards of Brockley in the snow, cupcakes, and slug and weedkillers. Only the chemicals failed to shift. This retail offering may sound like a health and safety nightmare, and indeed one child complained about tinfoil in their fairy cake, but the event had a lovely community feel, with a ukulele band, Santa and mulled wine on offer. We used a cute baby as bait (my idea) and gave the proceeds to charity (not my idea).

However, no-one bought any garden products. Maybe it was the time of year. Maybe the trendy Brockley-ites want to do it for free. Maybe the seeds and grow-your-own thing is now so embedded that no-one thinks they need garden chemicals any more. Maybe they are all organic and self-sufficient. But I doubt it.

Last year, sales of chemicals went up overall, perhaps because the damp brought out slugs. Do you still use weedkillers and slugkillers? Or should they be banned?

Snow business in the garden

Is there anything to do in the garden at this time of year? I say there isn’t. Gardening publications say there is. Mainly involving looking at seed catalogues and tidying your shed. I recommend taking a photo of your garden in the snow. Email pictures to gardening@telegraph.co.uk (jpeg or tiff preferred) and we'll put up a gallery of the best.

Matthew Appleby is Horticulture Week's deputy editor. Matt also edits Garden Retail magazine and writes gardening news for the Evening Standard and other daily and weekly publications. He is a keen allotment gardener and blogger

Rhs investment news

We're in the money
The RHS's annus horribilis is almost over with the news that the gardening charity has signed up fund manager M&G (a Pru subsidiary), as its new Chelsea Flower Show sponsor. After making 80 staff redundant, seeing a one third drop in sponsorship of gardens at Chelsea in May 2009 and the surprise departure of director general Inga Grimsey, the RHS has been in disarray.
To top it off, the society had to start recruiting again as soon as redundancies were completed because more staff left than anticipated, many upset about a breakdown in communciations between management and gardeners.
Suddenly, it's all different. There's an estimated £3m from the sponsorship, big names such as Diarmuid Gavin, Andy Sturgeon (with the Telegraph garden), Tom Stuart-Smith and James Wong are designing show gardens for Chelsea 2010, and numbers of big show gardens have recovered from 14 to about 20 as sponsors emerge. And, perhaps most importantly, the media ran the Chelsea credit crunch downturn story last year. So this year, to make a story, we need a new one. So a successful Chelsea it will be.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Uk

Untidy Gardens make the best homes for wildlife

Article posted in the Independent Online:

A detailed study of biodiversity in town and city gardens has found that they offer a vital refuge for animals and plants ? provided that those responsible for their upkeep are not too fastidious as gardeners.

It has also found that many of the preconceptions about wildlife gardening are not true. Small gardens are just as good as big gardens at attracting wildlife, suburban gardens are not always better than city gardens and non-native plants are not always harmful to native insects and birds.

Britain's 16 million gardens are a haven for hundreds of species of animals and plants that would find it impossible to survive on intensively farmed land, said Ken Thompson of Sheffield University.

"Gardens are amazingly diverse even compared to natural habitats that are good for wildlife. Gardens are more interesting on a small scale because they are so variable. All the wildlife responds to these variables," Dr Thompson said.

"Compared with an equivalent area of modern intensive farming, gardens are much, much better in terms of everything you measure, whether it is spiders, bugs or birds," he said.

"It sounds heretical, but from a biodiversity perspective most farmland would be improved by having a housing estate built on it," he told the British Science Festival.

Dr Thompson was involved in the first detailed study of the wildlife inhabiting British gardens when he and his colleagues surveyed 61 gardens in Sheffield between 1999 and 2002. They found an "astonishingly diverse" array of flora and fauna.

They also identified a range of simple measures that improved a garden's habitability for wildlife. "The top thing is to grow more big shrubs, trees and hedges," Dr Thompson said.

"These massively increase the volume of vegetation in your garden and a lot of vegetation means a lot of places to live and a lot of stuff to eat," he said.

"Don't be too tidy: don't be in a hurry to clear up everything when the garden stops flowering. Just leave a bit of stuff lying around.

"There's a mistaken belief that wildlife gardening is something special, something different, something odd and that a wildlife garden needs to be untidy, messy and not something you'd be proud of, but that's not true," Dr Thompson said.

The best gardens for wildlife needn't cost lots of money, and many of the "wildlife" products sold in garden centres are unnecessary, he said.

"Decking is a disaster. One of the findings of the Sheffield study was the very clear relationship between hard surfaces of any sort and less wildlife. It doesn't matter what it is ? as long as it's hard, it's bad," he added.

How to get a more natural garden

*Plant large shrubs and let them grow big. Shrubs and trees produce more vegetation where wildlife can live and eat.

*Allow at least some flowers to turn to seed and the lawn to grow tall. Don't be in a hurry to clear up fallen leaves.

*Create a pond for insects, frogs and toads. Think before stocking it with fish which will eat insect eggs and larvae.

*Don't illuminate your garden at night with bright lights. This will disturb many nocturnal creatures, such as moths.

*Create a compost heap ? they are miniature nature reserves in themselves. Compost also enriches the soil

UK Grandmother ordered to remove garden

Although this isnt a gardening tip as such, it is interesting to read that we are now told to disregard our gardens in such a hopeless manner by those we trust the most. Our council leaders and those who we pay our taxes to dont seem to quite grasp the importance of gardens or gardening in general.

In one of the most bizarre policies in modern history a UK grandmother has been ordered to clear some of her shrubbery in order to make way for three council waste bins.

The article from the Mail Online reports that Mrs St John was given the waste bins as part of a council edict enforcing all residents to now house them. While many of us already possess one or two of these wheelie bins most of us also have space to hide them. Not so for Mrs St John who has a frontage of only a few metres.

When Mrs St John complained to Harlow Council's recycling officer he suggested that she make way for the bins by removing some of her shrubs and installing paving to house them on!

Now, I don't mean to be alarmist but if every household in the UK were forced to do this wouldn't it mean that they could lose nearly 5% of their gardens overnight? I'm not sure where Harlow Council think they are going with this preposterous policy but it can't be good.

Interestingly, the Mail Online received more than 260 comments on this article and have since closed their comments. While some respondents were as bemused as I am, the odd detractor fielded comments such as;

There is plenty of space for bins in that messy, overgrown plot. They could be stored safely for her and easily hidden by some shrubs. Isn't that what normal people do? Why is she making such a fuss?
and;

Hmmm, not quite the shocker as it would seem when you read on. She doesn't have to pave her garden, and she has alternatives to the 'eyesore' of the wheelie bins in her front garden- she can wheel them through her house for a start. Reading what the council said they actually seem pretty reasonable.
Hmmm....wheeling rubbish bins through the house??? I can see why this guy thought the council was being quite reasonable!

This appears to be one of those issues where the "forest" gets missed for the "trees". On one hand, the Harlow council should be applauded for their efforts in assisting a recycling program but when the only way to achieve that is to remove gardens, one has to ask where the logic is in this?

Continue to support your local garden centres and get out there and prove the importance of gardening to the UK economy and UK culture.

Should all Uk Gardens have a water feature or a fountain?

If you are planning on adding a Garden fountain or water feature to your garden, no matter if it is big or small, you are enhancing the outdoor area by making it a tranquil retreat and an elegant focal point. Certainly, if you don’t have one already, you are probably looking on the web at the wide selection of garden fountains or water features that you could choose. Garden fountains have a long reputation as an Artistic accent as well as a enjoyable experience.

Garden fountains and water features have been used in human habitations for thousands of years. In the architecture of ancient Rome it wasn’t unusual to find garden fountains at the heart of home courtyards. Looking at the hieroglyphs found on Egyptian tombs, garden fountains and water features were also present in the ancient peoples of the Nile. Fountains were located in public squares where people washed themselves, but they also became decorative elements in private gardens. Many countries in the Orient, especially Japan, still honor the traditional formal garden with their ornate garden fountains.

The 21st Century Garden, especially in the UK, generally contains some sort of fountain or running water. That may be in the shape of a pond with a water feature or a grand fountain lit up at night. The ideas all stem back to the previous paragraph. The Romans quickly found that running water was not only a feature of stature and grandure but also a wonderful architectural eye pleaser.

Understandably, the type of UK garden fountains you choose may depend on size or shape of the space . For large gardens, you will probably want large and intricate garden fountains to suite. Smaller gardens usually implies smaller, but no less distinctive fountains. You can choose wall-mounted fountains or those sitting on freestanding bases. It is also important to note that you can purchase garden fountains in various different materials in the UK such as wood, copper, ceramic, stone, fiberglass, resins, and cast iron.
The UK climate can be harsh and that is why 99% of fountain and water feature retailers sell protected materials. The ice and snow of winter can be harsh but should not deter you from your dream as such. Just be aware that once your water feature or fountain is in place in your garden, it is important to protect it from the elements wherever possible. A good water feature or fountain should last 15 to 20 years and withstand everything the winter can throw at it. You tend to get what you pay for from a reputable garden centre in the uk

It may be an option to store a small fountain inside, but with larger or freestanding garden fountains, this option is not possible, nor should you have to. You could go out and purchase a protective cover for your water feature that would slide over your fountain. Remember that if you remove the water pump that you should make sure it is free of water.

Research into fountains has shown a relationship between the running waters of garden fountains or waterfalls and a beneficial impact on your health and well-being. Others would consider the spiritual advantages of fountains to be of importance based on the sense of peace they can induce. It is a scientific fact that running water releases negative ions that purify the air by removing dust particles and other pollutants so breathing is made easier.

If you are serious about getting garden fountains or water features, then you need to ask yourself what your likes and preferences are. Many people who buy garden fountains enjoy the do-it-yourself experience so it makes sense to find fountains that come with detailed installation guides so you’re connecting hoses and pumps correctly and, most importantly, safely. Most garden fountains and water features in the UK are easy to install and most of the modern models require just one person to put them together. Garden fountains can be a peaceful backyard accent or the centerpiece for your elegant garden design.

For more information on choosing the right garden fountain or water feature for you in the UK visit http://www.waterfeatureuk.co.uk/ or purchase from a fantastic range of both indoor and outdoor fountains visit http://www.poplartreegardencentre.co.uk/

The Pogues Shane Macgowan to star in New Gardening Show

In what is set to be one of the most unlikely -- and indeed, original -- reality shows of recent years, the Pogues' very own pickled poet Shane MacGowan and his wife Victoria Mary Clarke are set to be the stars of their own gardening programme.

The documentary, 'Victoria and Shane Grow Their Own,' features the pair's attempts to grow their own vegetables in an effort to emulate the premise of 70s sitcom, 'The Good Life.' Reportedly inspired by America's First Lady Michelle Obama, Victoria tries to grow enough vegetables for her and Shane to live off, as well as planning a summer's end party for friends and family using their own harvest.


The biggest obstacle facing Victoria is the fact that she's no gardening expert and Shane -- gearing up for a summer tour of festivals with the Pogues as well as the usual rock'n'roll distractions -- proves to be of little or no help.

'Victoria and Shane Grow Their Own' is scheduled to be broadcast on Ireland's RTE One on Tuesday Dec. 8. Sadly, there are no plans at present to broadcast the show on outside the Emerald Isle.

UK Gardeners will have to wait for something along the lines of David Beckham and his Gardening show. In the meantime, get down to your local garden centre and support UK Green Gardening.